Dialogue
There is no point blaming anyone including the media buying fraternity for that. The only option if your viewership has fallen is to do soul-searching on the subject and find the reason. One day you say that TAM is bad and tomorrow you will say that BARC is bad... you can’t keep blaming measurement systems, but you can have a strong connect with the viewer to the best of your ability.
“Go to a pitch with your point of view, not necessarily what the client wants, because at the end of the day they come to you because they want your thinking,” believes Arun Iyer, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas.
<b>We need to create advertising assets that are not just compelling but "thumb-stopping" creative: Rob Norman, GroupM</b><br><br>
<b>We have become stronger, bigger and our price has gone up: Michael Roth</b><br><br> Treating each existing client as a new pitch is the way one should treat clients, believes a visibly exhausted but upbeat Michael Roth, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Interpublic Group of companies, (at Cannes).
<b>Havas is a digital native company: Yannick Bollore</b><br><br>
“I don’t know why it is such a big deal, I just had fun and I’m just going away, I think nothing interesting is happening in advertising right now, so my going away is one day of excitement, it is like award shows to be forgotten, after a day,” says R. Balakrishnan aka Balki (Group Chairman MullenLowe Lintas Group) with characteristic candour, on the reactions to the news of him bidding adieu to advertising after a three decade-long career in the industry.<BR><BR> Balki spent the bulk of his advertising years at the MullenLowe Lintas Group. He joined the agency (then known as Lintas) in 1994, in its Bangalore office.
In a freewheeling chat, Rana Barua and Ashish Chakravarty, Contract’s CEO and CCO respectively get talking on the agency’s recent wins, which include ITC Personal Care, Century LED bulbs, Abbott Healthcare, Lupin OTC, Orient Fans, Reckitt & Colman, Garnier among others. Contract has also won the mandate for mygov.in, one of the largest mandates from the Government of India. <br><br> The duo field questions on receiving offers from other agencies, what is a compelling offer to them, taking Contract to the next level why clients are willing to wait for the agency today and more
Last year was an eventful year for Sajan Raj Kurup Founder & Creative Chairman Creativeland Asia, a visibly exhausted but spirited Kurup gets candid about why industry do’s are ‘unexciting’ for him, why staying away from Goafest has added to the agency’s culture and focus, expanding operations beyond India, Why charging a pitch fee still works for CLA, his thought process behind work for Micromax, and life after Parle Agro.
MEC’s Global CEO Charles Courtier gets candid about not playing the under-cutting game, why more regular pitching is the new normal after the ‘Mediapalooza’ of 2015, take-aways from as well as focus areas for MEC India
Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO, FCB, talks about his expectations from Rohit Ohri who will don the role of Group Chairman and CEO (India) in January this year, speculations around talent moving from Dentsu to FCB. He also reacts to speculations around Satbir Singh, and talks about reasons for not wanting to make any revolutionary changes in to the agency in India. Excerpts:
“All media agencies today are gearing for change in an environment of digital, data, and technology. This is potentially changing the way we target, work seamlessly across media, deal with a connected consumer and deliver outcomes. This re-engineering, if you want to call it that, is as applicable to Madison as it is too any other agency. I hope to play my role in being a catalyst of change”
We are looking for brands that are looking to change the status quo
Mobile communications mean that it is possible to be on 24/7, and there is an anxiety that the competition will be using speed as a source of competitive advantage. Clients therefore have less time to plan strategy and to consider results. This I think is a shame, but I do not see the pace of change becoming any slower, only faster as 4G networks roll out and communications will not rely on Wi-Fi enabled locations. In other words, we will be able to work in real time from anywhere. The opportunity for the PR practitioner is to be a trusted advisor to the client by keeping focused on the messaging and the media while the client manages their internal processes.
I think Asia is beginning to understand the dividends that can be had when you treat your brand or company reputation like any other commercial asset. A good reputation pays off in terms of consumer preference, customer loyalty, talent attraction and retention and faster recovery when issues inevitably occur.
One of the primary innovations has centered around how we work. We have successfully adopted Golin’s G4 model, which has transformed the way we work and enabled us to better our product. We have also successfully leveraged our partnership with Mullen Lowe Lintas Group and make use of the unique expertise and talent that resides there.
The pace of change in the marketplace, driven by convergence is so rapid, so pervasive, that clients who haven’t done a pitch, in the last couple of years, are stepping back and saying it is getting more complicated, and asking ‘as an agency how are you helping me bring these together and drive us forward?’. Part of the pitch is to understand agency’s capability that is the primary driver.
There are some markets converting to Mullen Lowe immediately. Mullen Lowe, NY, Boston, Brazil already converted. However there are some markets where the brand has been so strong for so many years, like Lowe Lintas in India. It is a household brand. I don’t think we should paint the whole world with one Mullen Lowe brush. In some markets where the brand is so strong like Lowe Lintas in India, maybe we don’t rebrand it. I am not going to go and push all markets and rebrand everything. There is a case to be made in certain markets where the brand is extraordinarily strong.
What I have noticed about the India market is that historically it has always looked to the West and US to develop similar services. It is missing a big trick by not developing its own Indian way of engaging the consumer. It is very different from China for example, where the platforms are completely unique from those of the western world and are tailor made to the needs of the local consumers.
In India there is this thing of National Identity. At the same time there is this ‘Arm Chair Globalist’ which constitutes 67 per cent of the total. Arm chair globalisters are the ones who have not really travelled much but are interested to know what is happening around the world. And when you go back to the trust on the local brands, it is one of the highest. It is almost 75 per cent. Therefore, there is a huge trust on local brands as well. Globally, more than half of the people prefer global brands but in India it is less than half.
2016 is the year of marketing and improving our sales position and mostly by improving our yield; and by improving yield I’m not going to say that I will mindlessly change my prices. I want to tell my brands and business partners that just because I am sitting, don’t take me to be a duck.
Technology follows consumption and consumption follows technology, it is a cycle and unless the cycle changes you will continue to lag behind the rest of the world. It is also important that you can monetize your digital properties. I think this is the best time to be a news entrepreneur. I don’t think India has seen the next big digital entrepreneur. We have not seen the next Prannoy Roy, Raghav Bahl or Ronnie Screwvala in the Indian digital space. There are plenty of people who might get there but have not done so yet.
The delivery of news content has changed over the years and will continue to evolve with increasing competition and different platforms for news consumption. Factors like speed which were crucial at one time continue to be important but it is the Trust and Faith over 14 years that have been real deciders in the news space.
This is an industry-driven initiative with all the three stakeholders being a part of it and if they remain true to the commitment of getting BARC off the ground, I don’t see too much of an issue that should come up because all three stake-holders have actually put their money where their mouth is. It’s just been a pro-bono experience, so while the challenges of what it will take to implement BARC on the ground remain because of the sheer expanse of the market that will be covered, from an industry perspective it will be a welcome change and I think most people are looking forward to it.
I believe this medium is going through a difficult period, where people tend to compromise their value system all too easily. I also believe that for every five people who compromise there are always two who are holding the flame of truth, so the glass is half full for me .
M&E is such a dynamic industry. What keeps me awake or worries me, is losing the ability to keep in touch with the consumer, because the viewer or the consumer is evolving so rapidly. As an organization, the day we stop connecting, we have a problem. I keep reflecting, do we have the right culture, do we have the right people, do we have the right processes, do we have the right DNA in a manner of speaking which is more enterprising, so that we are constantly in touch, so that we are able to move with them if not a little ahead of them? Are we managing to stay with the curve?
What is happening in India with the new government, politically and economically, the next few years look very interesting and different. The other thing is MEC itself in the country. This is our fastest growing market in the world; so there is something that the guys here are doing are doing it right. So what we are looking to do is understand what we are doing right in India and take it to other geographies. At the same time, we are also looking at ways to speed it up. The new political and economic situation in the country combined with a dynamic and strong performance by MEC has created a “perfect storm” situation, if you like.
India now has global enterprises and multinationals. They are evolving and they are good at research and development. I am not worried about the big global enterprises I am worried about medium sizes enterprises. They are the ones who face challenges and competition. They can’t make things in a 19th century environment. They need to enhance and be able to compete.
The big monopoly houses in Indian cable industry have been offering resistance at every step of our journey. The big players thrive on the weaknesses of the small operators while our strategy is based on their empowerment. Many of these small LCOs are not highly educated and don’t fully understand the DAS regulations and matters related to taxation, etc. But they have made money by setting up their networks. At times they succumb to the pressure tactics and allurements of the big players but the history of the cable trade has shown that they don’t want to lose the control of their networks and of their customers.
I think, ultimately, all advertising will be digital and all digital advertising will be traded programmatically. India is very sophisticated, there is a tremendous amount of technology that is developed in the country and what we have seen in other markets is that when you have the right technology-rich environment, media companies or publishers will accelerate adoption.
Social media is dependent upon social networks, and those networks are made up of people who are uniquely attuned to the other people in their social networks. We intentionally look at the Facebook activity feed, and we follow people on Twitter who give us the sort of information we want. Here, social surveys play a key role in understanding what your consumers like and do not like. Unfortunately, many brands do not care for these surveys, and are content with just building a fan base or follower base.
There are multiple platforms and different sources of news. The world has gone digital and the question is where do we go in this digital world? The big challenge for all media organisations is how the ones that were big TV networks are converging their assets and how they are prioritising their digital platforms. Across these multiple platforms, we have this global conversation going which has to be captured.
A 360 campaign by default will incorporate digital channels as part of the mix and, therefore, digital can play a role in every campaign a marketer runs. Experience and familiarity with traditional channels are the only barriers that marketers have in exploiting digital channels to their advantage. The key is not proposing a 360 degree campaign for the sake of ‘ticking the boxes’, but taking the time to assess each channel in turn (digital and traditional) and decide on its importance for the target audience.
There are always distribution challenges in every country. There are substantial numbers of cable operators in India and we are looking to further breakthroughs as well. However, news channels are weeping when it comes to carriage fees as they pay a huge amount.
The fundamental belief is that in today’s digital age, the media, consumers and brands have been transformed. For consumers, this shift has been most prevalent through social and mobile technologies. For brands, these external forces have meant that all organisations are now media companies in their own right.
There will be a lot of focus on digital endeavours, which will continue post the elections. Going forward, there are plans to push the News 24 channel internationally. We have already started beaming the channel in the Middle East region... Our focus is going to be the US and Canada, wherever there are Indian viewers.
We are committed to India and are putting in money not only to create products, but also for marketing activities. There will be changes you will see in the coming months. We will be very consistent with our communications and you will also see us increase the frequency of communication about the products.
You cannot think about digital and offline in isolation any more. This is the biggest shift that has happened in our thinking and I think this has happened in the industry, in general. It is so much a part of our lives today, that our approach also has to be integrated taking into consideration how consumers’ decision making and the way they consume information has changed.
More than anything else, consolidation is at the core for survival and success. With consolidation, the bigger entities will stay relevant and be better equipped to deal with the media buying community. Efficiencies through consolidation should lead to more investment in product improvements, including measurement.
Advertising as we know it, which is placement of content in a location you have bought, is to a certain extent dead. This is so because what platforms like mobile, Internet and social have done is made media infinite… The advertising sector is still moving forward on its own inertia. There is still a lot of money being spent on traditional advertising, which is going to carry on, but if they don’t start transforming themselves drastically, they will come to a stop once the inertia runs out.
The 'Create or Else' philosophy comes from David Ogilvy's 'Sell or Else'. The creative process is messy, frightening and filled with insecurity. And that's the fun part. We are in the business of creativity that is changing in many ways, and this is the age of the story-teller so 'Create or Else' would tell stories everywhere. It is interesting to note that the business has changed, but the only thing that hasn't changed is story-telling. I strongly believe that the cardinal sin is to be boring.
We want to build a strong creative culture. Delhi is the headquarter of opportunities, while Mumbai is the headquarter of execution of big ideas. To build the perfect balance between the two by syncing the talent pool in Mumbai to opportunities in Delhi is also going to be key focus for us.
Mobile is going to be huge. We will be putting tremendous effort in creating innovative products based on consumer insights. At CES 2013, Marissa has announced ad product offering, mobile products, and two new digital magazines. She also mentioned that there will be a huge thrust in our communication products such as Yahoo Mail. These are all global offerings. We are all set for phenomenal growth.
Everything that I see suggests that brands operating in India are aware that a large part of their audience spends most of their time online today and are trying to engage with them. The only thing that may be holding back some brands is the amount of money they are willing to spend on social media engagement and activation as compared to digital advertising. But Indian marketeers are smart – they operate in a tough environment and are perhaps the fastest movers in the world.
The news channels (in India) are very lively and sensational, but don’t have the depth of coverage, something like what the BBC would offer. It’s also interesting to ask people in India how interested they are in international news. Do they want to have a broader knowledge about what’s happening in the world? Indian news channels don’t spend time looking at happenings outside India.
We started with the ‘3C’ approach, where the first ‘C’ represented creation of new product and additional capacities… The second ‘C’ represents connect with the masses. We went into an aggressive expansion mode not only in the urban areas, but also in the rural areas… The third ‘C’ is communication. We translated our global slogan, ‘The power of dreams’, into ‘Sach kar denge sapne’. The tone and manner of communication in the print ads was regionalised not only in terms of language, but also in terms of the look-and-feel.
Last year, the contribution of digital to overall SMG revenues in India was in excess of 40 per cent, we have made a huge amount of push on the revenue and capability front. We have invested substantially both on search, both organic and paid. Some of the investments of the network are beginning to pay off.
My feeling is that once the general elections are over in 2014, whichever way people decide, there will be a bit of a peak in the economy and marketing plans for all clients, there will be a promise of five years of stability. Our focus area will be to capitalise on the renewed surge of energy in the product and services market.
To win, you need to focus on the downstream. Increasingly, you will find that is where the majority of the competitive action (between brands) occurs. It is also here that there are so many neglected opportunities for differentiation.
Nike as a brand does associate with several sports stars, but it’s only to build aspiration and by associating with them, the brand becomes known for excellence common among these players. We believe in innovation and inspiration, both are key virtues shared by Nike and sporting excellence.
Approximately 10 million consumer homes are consuming content electronically; despite this, the imaging part is still very traditional. There is a need for printers to be smart as well. In fact, almost 30 per cent of our printer market can move to cloud printing since consumers are now storing their vital information on online services.
Our body language has changed, India has really benefitted from being a signed up member of a network, we can see that in the P&L, in the types and calibre of people that we are hiring. We can see that in the work we are doing now, and it is only a year right now, we are planting the right seeds now for a longer term play.
You still see resentment among some TV news channels that the internet has come and wrecked their business model. Print in some parts of Europe and America is having a very tough time coming to terms with the internet. Mobile consumption has seen a rapid uptake, however, advertising monies have been quite slow to move to mobile.
I think marketing needs to be meaningful. We are spending a very important and considerable amount here in India, but it needs to be meaningful, which means it needs to be in line with what you want to achieve with your marketing strategy, because you can also spend a lot of dollars and yet that could be useless... The driving factor for Rado in the past 55 years and in the coming 55 years was and will be innovation. The day we stop innovating, we will probably kill the brand.
Roughly 20 per cent of our revenues globally come from digital, which didn’t exist just three years ago. It’s not just about digital – that is the whole engagement play, which is why we now call ourselves an ‘engagement agency’, because so much of what we are doing now is really strategic content. Most of our clients have woken to the fact that they already produce such an incredible amount of content that they factor to become publishers. The serious dollar now is in helping companies to effectively become publishers of their own material across multiple platforms and engaging with the audiences directly.
Our strategy has been to provide and communicate enhanced value equation to the consumer. As long as I can touch the consumer’s heart and say I am providing you far better value than any other brand, my growth is happening. Our marketing strategy is to constantly bring out products and concepts that enhance value by giving good quality products at a value pricing methodology.
While we are seeing strong growth in urban areas, we are also seeing very strong growth in semi-urban and rural areas. As more and more of India gets electrified, clearly there are lot more opportunities for lighting going forward... Currently, our share in the LED space exceeds 46 per cent.
Clients expect the team to concentrate on their job, which is to sell more products. If you want your agency to be interested in your sales, you have to pay your agency to be interested in the sales, which is why with Tata Motors we get paid commensurate with how many sales they get. We follow the pay-for-performance model, linking compensation directly to client growth. It’s a simple rule that we follow and I think this is how the clients should behave. The client should not pay by commission or fees, but they should pay by sales.
Great interpretation of good data is also specialised artistry at real cost. The industry is in danger of pricing itself out of creativity if its benchmark is only cost – the advertising world of the future is badly in need of ‘Ideas’, which will not only come from crowdsourcing. And in this department, as we’ve seen through the history of business, a truly passionate start-up can give any WPP/ Publicis Onmicom a run for their money, scoring as creative maverick business people.
Our clients in India are truly blue chip. This allows us to do good work, get recognised and learn. India is a jewel in the crown for Maxus APAC.
We are making big strides in analytics. We are going beyond our competition and using analytics to understand the most efficient channels and the most effective vehicles. We are going beyond that to see how we can evaluate from a quantitative perspective content opportunities for certain genres of television and certain insights around our audiences that we can leverage back into our target insights so we can literally feel becoming better at targeting by knowing what’s working.
Media is at a place where India can share a lot of innovation with the rest of the world. I also really enjoy the sophistication in the market. Indians are leading the way in marketing leadership. Indian talent is extraordinary; the best talent in the world comes out of India.
With the acquisition of ACS, we now offer a full range of business process and IT outsourcing services. Services now account for more than 55 per cent of our revenues globally. This is Xerox’s transition and transformation to the back-office market leader. In India, it is a combination of document management services, innovative technology products and channel businesses that are driving growth and profitability for Xerox.
A lot of our clients see mobile and digital as areas where they should be investing in, however, they are still somewhat sceptical as it is difficult to measure the RoI and impact. Hence, the budgets aren’t as large and the spends still go the traditional way. I don’t think brands and markets are utilising the medium as much as they should, but at the same time there is some great work happening in terms of quality.
The PR industry is evolving from being a media relations function to a strategic marketing and communications discipline. Our work is much more complex than what it used to be, which is why we are moving from being generalists to specialists. It is no longer possible for one person to be good at every aspect of communications, which is the rationale for our G4 redesign. We have moved from a vertical hierarchy of generalists to four communities of specialists. We still have a long way to go. But that is the future.
Indian design and retail must prepare for the new age, where the quality and line of products, the presentation of shops and the role of technology are becoming highly influential. Design and branding will be of enormous help in creating greater impact and brand loyalty of customers.
A large part of the media today doesn’t know how to handle products that are a mix of pharma and consumer products. They are good at talking about purely FMCG products. You have to marry science and consumer understanding as there is a thin edge of sensitivity. Media agencies struggle with this. The other challenge is that the media space is becoming very expensive and you are reaching out to the same eyeballs.
Unless people who are below you make you feel unsecure, you don’t progress. I don’t compete with my peers, I compete with younger people all the time, I always hire people who make me feel jealous and insecure, and I feel that I should compete with them in one last race. Unless people below you grow, you don’t grow, which means you are stagnating and regressing.
Big Data doesn’t necessarily tell the truth, it can be manipulated. I am not saying that statistics and research are not valid. If the data is good and can be used in the correct way to give you insights, not answers, then I am fine with it. The lie of Big Data is that it gives you answers. It doesn’t. Big Data gives you insights, from which you need to derive insights. It doesn’t tell you as a marketer or an agency ‘go do that’, which is what people think. It also keeps people away from using their instincts and common sense at times.
The market growth for India is going to be 8-9 per cent, which is consistent with last year. We see ourselves being ahead of that by two times… In the coming year, you can expect more change, more dynamic partnerships, more ideas, experience, automations, and addressability from us.
The coming year is a tough one since it is Election year. It is a year where one has to have nerves of steel, you have to be stable; a lot of policies are going to be announced, one has to realistic about one’s ambitions, in my opinion, you cannot be very aggressive. We will continue making inroads into new clients and be cautiously optimistic, and will be watching what happens in the political scenario that impacts the economy.
Grey was synonymous with Nirvik Singh, hopefully that needle is moving, which is also because Nirvik had never stopped me from doing anything that I wanted to do. Nothing prepares you for the role of a CEO; a new dream or nightmare walks into my office every few minutes. I am aware of the legacy I have inherited. Hopefully, I will not just raise the bar, but clear it.
As one of the youngest countries on the planet, Indian advertising has no choice but to consider their view on the way we build brands. The post-liberalisation generation is poised to be the biggest consuming class in the country and both mass and class brands will have to stay relevant to them. The other aspect of being young is their natural comfort with technology. We need to be ready to reinvent our approaches to stay relevant to them.
The Indian client continues to remain price conscious, though now willing to put more dollars behind digital than before. While the Indian brand manager comfortably spends crores on TV commercials and print advertising, she remains circumspect on digital and expects immediate ROI. In international markets, customers are willing to invest in their digital assets, 'farm' them through continuous digital spends on search, social, etc., and then enjoy the returns of the digital brand presence once it crosses a certain threshold size.
Though India is very important, but from a marketer’s point of view, China is the focus. At this moment, brands are still trying to win in China because they don’t think they have won there. To me, right now I think India should be playing at that level. But that doesn’t mean that India isn’t a priority. For most of our clients, India is a top priority market. For MEC, India is among the top ten priority markets.
I am a great believer in brilliant thinking; creativity is just the logical conclusion to brilliant thinking. If you don’t have the thinking and the real understanding of people, and an understanding of the purpose of the brand in people’s lives, you will never get to creative excellence. You will get to the execution, but you don’t get to communication. Communication is designed to work, while advertising just talks at you. We don’t have the divine right to people’s attention, we have to give them something in return for their investment.
Growing our business is paramount; the reason we cluster emerging markets the way we do is because we see them as a driver of growth for our business. The Indian market is growing and we want to grow disproportionately within the market, we are set to grow at a rapid pace. Even if the rate of growth in the market place drops in terms of GDP growth, our ability to grow is definitely there. India is our fastest growth market.
In India, you still have a market where 45 per cent of the revenue is in newspapers. And you still have a mark where television delivers massive simultaneous reach in some of the higher spending internet markets. So, the big pillars of brand communication actually remain more intact in India than in other parts of the world and distribution infrastructure, specifically organised retail, exists to a much larger degree in India than in other parts of the world.
Social engagement is going to drive brands. What you do with social is build brand love, advocacy and mindshare in a powerful manner. If you can start to marry your top-of-the-funnel engagement with your bottom-of-the-funnel performance marketing activity, it will get very exciting. Moving from spray-and-pray mass communication to highly targeted, ROI-oriented communication, you will see a much more sophisticated and financially aligned marketer.
John G Noseworthy, Strategic Messaging Director - Big Data for Marketing, Media & Entertainment, IBM
The beauty of social is it tells where people are right now, so with the help of analytics we can predict where they can be. The advantage to marketers is that they can give consumers what they want, before they know they even want it. The process of connecting the right consumer to the right product at the right place, which earlier normally took three weeks, now takes 500 milliseconds; that is a game-changer, that is the power of social.
I accept there is a roadblock for broadcasters when it comes to carriage fees and all of us are bleeding. We have discussed this with the multisystem operators and we are getting 35-50 per cent discount on carriage fees as compared to last year. Post the first phase of digitisation, we have been getting this discount and are expecting the same discount in the second phase as well. The discount from both the phases will give major savings to broadcasters.
<strong>(Christopher Slaughter)</strong> Digitisation is the largest single movement for commercial priority and consumer choice taking place anywhere in the world. Given the size of the Indian market, the sheer ambitiousness makes it the biggest thing in the pay TV industry. It will bring in greater transparency and the latest technology to the broadcast sector.
We need more Aggies and Paddys to take Taproot to the next level... We are very greedy when it comes to work, we treat everything like an opportunity, we have no personal or social life, we compromise that for work. Once we get the brief, we are very excited to see it in some media form. We still behave like a small kid when he sees a new toy; this whole domino effect is what gives us the edge.
Clients are now becoming quite brave in terms of the choices that they might take, but I think it is still a slightly risk averse bravery. Clients are not in a position where they can endlessly experiment, so they need to know that if they are being brave there is a strong likelihood that there is going to be some kind of success at the end of the day
Digital has to be our focus area, under that digital space you have got everything – from saying how do I use the data that the digital world is generating to give me better insights, better accountability to help clients put together the data that they already have. The definition of digital is going to change as more of us migrate more of our online behaviour to tablets or handphones. I don’t know yet whether the advertising dollars are necessarily flowing in as quickly to follow our behaviour. But that has certainly been a challenge as an industry for the last 20 years.
If you are talking about digital or traditional, you are obsolete; today everything is holistic. When consumers are exposed to different messages, they don’t think ‘now I’m going to watch traditional’ and ‘now is my time to watch digital’. They just watch. They are just impacted. It is all about how to be efficient to reach the consumer and to influence the consumer.
Brand aesthetics and the financial impact cannot live in isolation, what you will see is more focus on the brand being able to financially justify themselves. Design of the brand is the best way for it to truly distinguish itself, as long as the design of the brand is representative of the experience consumers expect to have with it.
The readers are heading towards a zone of content and zone of information not necessarily bound by traditional vehicles. Readers are continuing to consume content, but their format is changing from access A to B. Hence, my feeling is that it is the peripheral people who had came in, who are dropping out, because the value that they were getting earlier because of some promotional activities are no longer available.
I see India as a hub of excellence for data analytics for the whole of Asia. A lot of thinking, technology and many of our approaches will be born here - David Gould, Global Digital, Managing Director, Starcom MediaVest Group
India is far more complex, if you had to compare it with Europe. Yes, there are cultural differences in Europe as well but by and large the imagery is fairly consistent and homogenous; because the social stratification and education is such that you can have communication that works across the board. You regionalise it for bits and pieces and language, but you are not looking at the lowest common denominator when you are creating communication. So, India is complex from that point of view, which is why the extra science helps.
Ministry of MIB has taken several path-breaking digital initiatives. YouTube channel of MIB Ministry is a big hit; we have more than one lakh likes. Also, every meeting that takes place on digitisation or any other important issue is put on the website of the ministry. We also have a regular blog. Ministry has appointed special set of officers from the Indian information service who have been specially drafted by the ministry to work on social media and they are doing extremely well
New media is not eating into the pie of print content. If you pick any successful digital media portal, invariably it is a replica of the print publication. Most digital content is riding on the back of traditional media, whether it is broadcast or print… As long as we can evolve a new paid model in digital, print has nothing to fear. But so far there are no successful and sustaining digital revenue models. Some day all publishers will realise that we need to have a paid model on digital as well.
TV advertising remains a powerful medium. Our efforts with regions with a localised approach and tailored content should help us tap the market further. Increasing audience engagement will also be key. We will work with our clients on ad formats and targeted ads. Innovative content distribution over digital platforms, better video experience for users, and consistency of experience across our platforms will help us on the distribution side as well.
Our statistics show that 67 per cent people believe in social media, whereas only 17 per cent people believe in advertising. The power of social media today has truly changed customer service. Post purchase service and experience play a big role today; a satisfied customer will post a great review which is greater than all the huge advertisements that the company might put out.
If you love what you do and you build it, margins eventually come. Everything is about geography and technology. Geography is easier to figure out but technology is not. It is very difficult to put your money on something because it is possible that what looks good one day, may not look as good the next day. That said, a company such as WPP is in a very interesting position because the more complex this ecosystem becomes, the more important our role becomes.
There has to be concerted efforts on part of the government, the regulator, MSOs, cable operators and broadcasters to quickly map out which of the 38 cities are doable and which are not doable, as it is better to postpone the date in those cities that are not doable instead of doing half-baked digitisation. My personal expectation is that of the 38 cities, digitisation will happen in about 25 cities.
Digitisation of business is more important than digitising the marketing. Digitisation of business is digitally powering the integration of all of the communication process, data analysis, data collection, marketing and understanding the manufacturing. One can mine information from social media by looking at the conversations and sparking discussions around it that will eventually tell whether the current product is going to survive or not.
Our aim is to strengthen our position India. We have announced a while ago that we want to make India a clear area of focus and we want to double the size of our operations. We are focused right now to give enough power and resources to our agencies here for us to achieve this target figure.
“The opportunity of digital media is vast – from basic sales, marketing, branding to HR, relationship management, repeat cycles management, free brand endorsing and building a brand experience. With the onset of mobile/digital media, the possibility for a brand to engage with a consumer and lead them to a sale is immense, but completely untapped.”
It is still early days of digitisation in the metros, let it play out and shortly we will experience the changes. Both viewers and broadcasters will get the advantage. Viewers will get to choose what they want to watch and many more channels will be placed now. The fact of the matter is content is king and now with digitisation, you will get to see more and more mature content.
The factual entertainment genre in India has grown by 29 per cent since History TV18’s debut, and the channel is the number one factual entertainment channel across some key metrics. India is an interesting market for factual. Some other territories have been reticent to push the boundaries of the genre, though when they do, viewers are very open to the change. That’s not the case in India; it’s an exciting, dynamic market at the forefront of new programming trends.
In the future, the communication industry will be shaped by technology, creativity and innovation. Understanding the consumer- technology interface is one of the core strengths of Dentsu in Japan. If we combine this understanding with the creativity and innovation of Taproot, we could create the agency of the future.
Social media is still growing rapidly in India and Facebook and Twitter are the growth drivers. In India, my hope is to start getting into content development and content sharing. In India, people are not creating enough user-generated content because we aren’t giving people the right opportunity to engage. It will be fun to see how this takes off and changes the way people interact and engage in a country that is so focused on TVCs.
Digital is no more an option today, it is a way of life. The balance of power is slowly shifting from traditional media to an engagement model. Mobile will further accentuate this. India’s large youth segment is certainly impacting a media-mix rethink. The switchover for clients is not easy. This is a very dynamic space and we have made huge investments in it, both in terms of strategy and design. You can look forward to some major announcements soon.
People even in the remotest parts of the country are using e-commerce to make bill payments like airline tickets and shop online. The number of e-commerce transactions is growing two to three times that of face-to-face transactions. Internet is here to stay, it is everywhere and is creating a new mindset. Visa looks to empower this – our motto is ‘Visa everywhere you want to be’ and with the internet, there’s no place on this planet now where you can’t use a Visa card.
Films today have become boring and predictable, unlike those of the olden times. The art of storytelling is distorted. If in a 30-second commercial you can’t surprise people, can’t make them smile or sad, you might as well not do it. If you are only doing it for the money, then why do it?
I think digitisation is a most welcome development… The consumer will gain by way of choice, broadcasters will gain by more capacity, the government gains by way of taxes and in the long term, cable operators will gain, otherwise they would have lost out to DTH anyway. So, digitisation is a win-win situation for everyone.
We are an aberration for a new agency. And I hope the media won’t put us in the same pond as some minnows. We want to be India’s first transcontinental agency that takes Indian clients to global markets, and the first agency that opens the bustling Indian market to unaligned global brands. And we want to be India’s first global agency.
The main focus is to strengthen the existing brand digitally. If newspapers were the source of conversation in the past, today social media is the source of conversation. If you look at the newspaper, the way news flows and the approach is different and, therefore, the way a digital product will be constructed will be different. I reckon there will be a lot of digital initiatives.
Digitisation allows you to segment even more, because up until now, the critical mass that we needed as a channel was being denied to us because of analog distribution, where there was only space for 100-odd channels. With digitisation and space for 500-600 or as many channels as you want, you can finally have segmented channels which appeal to very small audience segments, but still those audience segments ascribe a very good value to that channel and are willing to pay money to acquire that channel and view it.
We are aware that the clients’ expectations are changing. Keeping this in mind, we need to diversify into new media offerings and allied services… The future does belong to the digital world and the pioneers in this field today will be the rulers of tomorrow. Triton has set in motion a quiet internal revolution and will soon be ready to make our presence felt either with home grown talent or through an M&A.
We have travelled a long distance in the last 26 years. The confidence in ASCI among the public and the government has been enhanced substantially. It has been very good. Plus, in the last year we have achieved a lot. We have introduced the National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS), which looks at all new ads appearing in the country in print and TV.
Digital is an integral part of everything that we do, and has been for a while. If you produce a great TV spot, but don’t bother to design the next step of the interaction (and it’s increasingly likely to be a digital interaction), then that’s a huge waste of everybody’s time and money.
RoI can also be return on Ideas or Inspiration or Insight. We believe that we lead people to trust our products due to which they spend their money on our products. Therefore, it is our responsibility, as marketers, to utilise consumers’ money properly by initiating marketing activities that engage our consumers for longevity of the brand
Our marketing strategy has been the same; there has been no shift in our marketing strategy. The culture in our company is that we stay on brands, we are not chasing ratings for ratings’ sake. So, the viewer has no surprises; if the viewer comes to us and is expecting something, he will get that. We have loyalty among viewers and we have grown in rating and we managed to establish ourselves.
One needs to structure an agency based on advertisers’ needs. We can’t tell our client that we will give you only creative because we are a creative boutique after knowing that his need is one-stop solution for his marketing or business problem. It’s like selling a golf club without a putter.
We don’t want to be a television news channel which gives news of its own interest and delivers news of what others are doing it. Fresh news in a neutral form and delivering it in an unbiased way is in itself a niche way. We try to look at every aspect of the news and get into the minds of the people.
<p align=justify>Relationships don’t get built over cocktails, they get built over work. Every employee in JWT Delhi has an attitude of doing the best for their client. So there is a commitment, purity of purpose, intent which is not coming from a short term goal. Our clients have appreciated our work and we are proud of that. We will continue to win and lose campaigns – it’s part of the business. But we will continue to be on the growth trajectory and do better than other agencies. </p>
The advertising business is starved of creative talent. The younger generation, fresh out of B-Schools, wants to actualise fast. One should come to advertising to accept it as an intellectual challenge and not for money. I would say, ‘Come to advertising if you have the talent’.
<p align=justify>India TV is at the take-off stage as far as other projects are concerned. We have infrastructure in place from where we can start six channels. We are expanding into new media and are exploring possibilities in training and research. We are ready for execution of our plans and are waiting for the cable digitisation process to get underway. </p>
<p align=justify>Social media has given a way to Intel to humanize our brand. When you are a technology company, it is very difficult to have a persona to connect with people emotionally. Social has opened doors for us to put that human face on something that hasn’t been so tangible.</p>
We can’t be too focussed on people’s expectations. It is great they have it but we need to see things with our final objective in view - what are our strengths and shortcomings, where we want to be and how we will get there. I would like to just go about doing my work and do it in the best way possible. Things like awards are an outcome of the work you produce. This is a very competitive place but I am not worried about that. I want a mindset of beating what we did yesterday. Our competition is our immediate past.
ZO is second or third largest business globally, it is the number one brand in the US and it is in the top three brands in most of the key markets. I am pleased with what we did last year in India but we need to push harder, invest in people and training, invest in technology and explore options such as acquisitions to grow further, because arguably India is going to be the fastest growing market in the next 10 years.
If you look at the heart of marketing, it breathes meaning into things and ideas. Take Coke and plain carbonated water – the difference between the two is a few billion dollars! As human beings, we decode everything, because the human need is to fill ourselves with meanings. If you are a shaper of meaning, you must know how meaning is made. What is becoming important is symbolic and virtual. Marketing opens up new ways of seeing the world.
In the last 18 months, we have seen that usage of internet in India has become more utility-based. E-commerce last year crossed the $6 billion mark in India of which $5 billion was for travel
Talent continues to be a key area of focus for us. And Mobile is another area of priority on our agenda. Our resources are fully alert on that area. We had started very early on it in Europe and then we made some interesting reinforcements in the US. We now expect that the global teams would also work with our teams in markets such as India on that front.
Business is like boxing. You have to walk in the ring expecting blows and knowing that you will be hurt. It then is all about getting up and throwing your own punches. In the boxing ring, you have to think how you outlast your opponent. It is the same in business – competition can have deep pockets but you have got to be smarter, agiler and you have to know how to survive and fight back.
We have to be mindful of competition. We are in a competitive environment in virtually every market we operate in. But Discovery has been in these markets much longer than anyone else and we are much better established in terms of relationships with viewers and the industry. India has particularly been strong for us. We have a strong game plan in place. Competition is something we pay attention to but not something we get distracted by.
Building strong, multidimensional characters is the most important element to attract kids across the globe. Kids need to be able to relate to characters irrespective of geographical, social and cultural diversities. Minimal language eases out the challenge of language translation.
Awards boost creative excellence and give us a sense of what can be achieved when we push ourselves to do better. However, I believe that this should not be done in an unhealthy way. McCann will never promote anyone who does not contribute to clients, their growth and their business but just keeps providing a few metals. Metals are a creative director’s personal glory and it is all good as long as it is pushing them to do better work.
I am excited about my role. I feel privileged and honoured to be part of an iconic media legacy that is expanding into new verticals. My role will evolve into more defined functions over the next few weeks.
The way TV has fragmented, marketers will surely realise that their spend in print delivers. Marketers need delivery on-ground and they need response, and on that count, print will score higher any day. Television advertising overall is growing also because of the multiple platforms with many channels launching, but the question is whether they are delivering? I don’t think so. There are maybe 50 television channels of any substance. Advertising on the rest is wasteful.
I’d say Percept is an integrated sport and entertainment company rather than just a sports management or an event management company. When we look into a particular business, it’s important that we take on an area that we can completely create into our brand of entertainment and sports - where we can holistically take it on, invest in it, build it, nurture it and take it to a different level altogether.
Whatever we do must bring in many viewers and if we bring viewers, we should bring in a lot of money too. I don’t believe in doing anything that loses money, that is just lazy strategy and bad business. But the sad part is that any incremental viewership doesn’t get aggregated right now.
For Punjabis, PTC is a brand synonymous with Pride, Faith, Respect and Punjabiyat. The presence of Gurbani on our channels elicits a huge base of loyal viewers. The channels have so far been aggressive through Internet and social media. This year, we will be actively looking for opportunities of content availability on mediums beyond television. It is the demand for our programmes, both in India and abroad, which will enable us towards that side of the business.
Taking feed from Lok Sabha TV for a few minutes is alright and we are not raising any objections to that. But when you completely lift my content to get eyeballs on your channel, then it is not done. Lok Sabha TV’s USP is that it has exclusive rights to showcase the sessions in Parliament… So if you are taking content from my channel, you should pay for it.
These are defining times for media AORs. While we are at the tipping point of digital media, convergence and 360 degree communication channel planning get any advertiser to talk and you will hear loud and clear ‘the industry is caught in a time warp’. So, the innovative ones will survive, the actions taken now will define the top players in the not so distant future.
I think agencies should not fool around with clients. Everyone in the industry is talking about a GDP growth of 5.6 per cent or 5.7 per cent. If there is a crisis, then we all need to adjust to that – agencies as well as clients. Clients have a certain budget, and agencies need to understand that. Hence, there needs to be far better co-operation between clients and agencies to tide over slowdown periods.
<b>Jyotsna Chauhan:</b>While strategy is hygiene, Creative is our cutting edge product. In a highly competitive market today, it’s the creative which differentiates and sets the image of the brand and a brand is all about its image. Therefore, our impetus has always been on cutting edge creative – not the cutting edge creative that works on blank woods, but cutting edge work that builds value for brands both in terms of market share and mindshare. You can call us a mid-size agency with big size agency appetite, hunger and lust.
If your advertising makes your target to fantasise about life with your brand, there is a much bigger chance of him trying it out. Great advertising makes your target consumers ‘lust’ for your brand. In fact, I think great advertising is ‘brand-porn’… Great advertising is a lasting investment and not an expense. Great advertising makes the product more valuable that it tangibly is. By this I mean, thanks to great advertising consumers are willing to pay more for a product because they see more value in it.
Our strategy is convergent with what is going on in the client world. I just saw the IBM study, which interviewed 1,700 CMOs, and found the two biggest issues for CMOs are geography and technology. What I always talk about at JWT is that on both those counts, we need to lead into all the changes going on with technology because everything is happening very fast, especially in communication. Secondly, our strength is geography. By that I mean, we are well established in the mature markets, but we have deep roots in the fast growing markets, much more than our competitors.
<p align=justify><b>Arvind Wable:</b> The issue is that people see digital as a completely virtual world to connect with the consumer. I think the efficacy of the medium will become more visible and more meaningful if we connect digital with real, that is, connect digital with activation. We are trying to do exactly that through Aquila Experience and it has got tremendous traction from our clients. Aquila’s addition to strategic capability of Draftfcb Ulka is a force multiplier.</p>
With rapid economic growth and an increasing number of talented and influential business leaders, India has long been a strategic market for Financial Times. The launch of the Indian mobile applications are in line with FT’s global digital strategy and a key step for FT to further target the country’s top business community. Intersecting subscription offers with quality market content is what we give our rich reader base.
<b>Harindra Singh:</b> Percept had been in the traditional services business wherein we came up with entertainment, media and communication solutions to help deliver on the client’s objective, such as traditional Advertising, PR, Events, Production, Branded Entertainment, Media buying and so on. But such a business is very transactional in nature i.e. once the job and billings are completed we move on to the next project, and so on and so forth.
Our ambition and mission is to broad base the genre and ensure that every young Indian is tuning in to our channel. We look forward to having History leading and growing the genre progressively into an alternative to mainstream general entertainment channels. This is the general trend world over: factual entertainment channels actually compete with regular mainstream entertaining channels and we expect that to happen here as well.
<p align=justify><b>Our vision, our commitment, our oneness, and the stupid belief that we can be the best in the world. We have a work culture that defines that you are either in or you are out. There is no room for free floating mediocrity. We don’t do mindless work for money, hence we don’t need people who do that kind of work. We don’t even entertain clients who are willing to pay loads of money for it. We have 8-12 hours in a day. The time and energy spent are the same. So, why waste it on a high roller who is a low blower?</b></p>
I like challenges. I like to get out there. Comfort makes me a little bit uneasy. Another thing that became evident to me is that this is the biggest challenge in India. I mean there is no bigger agency, with the most number of creative people, and if those people find me talented, it will be a new level of leadership and get some great work out there, iconic work for these iconic brands. Designations are nice, but that is just not what I am about.
The digital and media agency businesses are the shining spots, but you cannot do that without the big creative idea, which is why everyone has to work together. It really is an integrated offering and if you can get them to work together, it is amazing. Just seeing all of them together, collaborating and executing an idea, is fantastic.
The point is not to cling to tradition for its own sake, but to preserve it, in keeping with the times, as a successful system of values. At the same time, one must not be afraid to question existing procedures and to optimise them – that’s an essential component of success. As a brand, Faber-Castell strongly values innovation and seeks to offer products with a point of difference as well as new and exciting styles. These values put us in an excellent position to take on our competitors.
If you have a product that’s targeted well and the advertising reaches the target, it will do well. The other side to that is that the environment for an upscale channel doesn’t allow mass products and premium products cannot be on a mass channel. India is no longer a cheap market, you have to very careful where you advertise, so when people like Sony, Honda, Tanishq, advertise on our channel, they know what they are getting into, they get an audience they want – it’s an audience that buys these kinds of products.
<b>G’Man:</b> At a market level, I see it as four different buckets – China, South East Asia, Australia and India. Of these, three are completely new to me and they will come with different kinds of challenges. <br><br> <b>Ravi Rao: </b> The way I see it, there are three clear challenges ahead. The first is to bring the best of Mindshare as a trusted advisor to our clients within the framework of marketing... The second is to attract, nurture and grow talent. The third very clear challenge ahead of Mindshare in India is to take digital to a broader territory.
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